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Bjork, cancel your Tel Aviv concert!

You uttered one word [“Tibet”] in a concert in Shanghai that sent ripples across many disapproving seas. This time, say it louder, and support another just cause: that of the Palestinian people.

Do not sing in Israel, so that your silence will prove to be more deafening.

The concert you plan to give in July in Israel will coincide with the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the establishment of this state over the ruins of another country, Palestine. With the creation of this state 60 years ago, three quarters of a million Palestinians were dispossessed and uprooted from their homes and lands, condemned to a life of exile and destitution.

At Hayarkon park in Tel Aviv, where you plan to sing, the Palestinian village of Jarisha was wiped off the map by the Zionist forces 60 years ago.

Israel at 60 is a state that is still denying Palestinian refugees their UN-sanctioned rights, simply because they are “non-Jews.” It is still illegally occupying Palestinian and other Arab lands, in violation of numerous UN resolutions. In the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Israel is continuing the construction of its colonies and massive wall in direct violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention as well as the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice of July 2004. It is still persistently and grossly breaching international law and infringing fundamental human rights with impunity afforded to it through munificent US and European economic, diplomatic and political support. It is still treating its own Palestinian citizens with institutionalized discrimination.

For several months now the state of Israel has been carrying out a slow genocide in the Gaza Strip, and maintaining a tight blockade over its inhabitants. Recently, the Israeli deputy defense minister Matan Vilnai, threatened Palestinians in the Gaza Strip with a “holocaust,” a direct reminder of what horrors might occur if Israeli aggression towards Palestinians continues to be met with international silence and apathy.

If you sing in Tel Aviv you will be taking part in a feast for war crimes, ethnic cleansing, dispossession, and continued oppression of a people.